China’s DF-61 rollout reignites the nuclear chess match, spotlighting its mobile missile edge and the US struggle to keep its aging, silo-bound arsenal credible.
This month, multiple media outlets reported that China has rolled out what appears to be a new road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the DF-61, during a military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of its World War II victory.
President Xi Jinping oversaw the event attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other foreign dignitaries.
Imagery showed 16-wheeled transporter-erector-launchers carrying canisters labeled DF-61, though whether they contained actual missiles is unknown, and details of the system’s capabilities remain unclear.
Analysts note it resembles the DF-41, which has a range of 12,000–15,000 kilometers and can carry up to 10 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.
Since at least 2020, US intelligence assessments and Chinese sources have pointed to new ICBMs under designations such as DF-45 or DF-51, with speculative claims of ranges beyond 15,000 kilometers and payloads of up to 14 warheads. However, none of these figures has been confirmed.
The DF-61 is widely seen as part of China’s ongoing nuclear buildup, which the US Department of Defense (DoD) estimates surpassed 600 operational warheads in mid-2024 and could exceed 1,000 by 2030.
Its parade debut came alongside the new DF-31BJ road-mobile ICBM and the JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), underscoring China’s push to diversify its nuclear deterrent across land- and sea-based systems.
However, that number pales in comparison to the US’s 3,700 warheads spread across its established nuclear triad, with China’s still in its formative stages, limited by its current H-6 bombers’ range and lack of stealth, as well as an incomplete bastion strategy for its nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).
But unlike the US, which has eschewed road-mobile ICBMs, China has placed a premium on these systems. According to Peter Wood and others in a March 2024 report for the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), China’s rationale for road-mobile ICBM launchers stems from their contribution to survivability and credible deterrence.
Wood and others note that while silo-based missiles gave China an intercontinental capability in the 1980s, their small numbers and fixed positions made them vulnerable.
They say that the introduction of road-capable ICBMs in the early 2000s improved survivability by allowing missiles to disperse from garrisons and operate from concealed “field” positions.
They mention this mobility, combined with advances in missile technology and the expansion of mobile ICBM units, has markedly strengthened China’s deterrent by ensuring that retaliatory forces could endure a first strike and still launch.
In contrast, a December 2021 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report notes that while the US experimented with road-mobile and tunnel ICBM concepts alongside silo basing during the Cold War, these options proved to be very expensive and impractical, and were eventually dropped due to cost and complexity.
However, the increasing vulnerability of US silo-based ICBMs and its air and sea-based nuclear arsenal may present a valid argument to reconsider mobile land-based options.
Toby Dalton and others mention in an August 2022 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) report that hypersonic boost-glide weapons could enable China or Russia to threaten US missile silos within the coming decades, well before the LGM-35 Sentinel’s projected 2075 end-of-service life.
The LGM-35 is intended to replace the long-serving LGM-30 Minuteman III, in service since the 1970s. Dalton and others warn that a non-nuclear strike on silos would force the US president into a perilous choice: launch ICBMs before destruction or escalate with other nuclear forces, potentially in response to a conventional attack.
They also point out that under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the US kept only one warhead per LGM-30 ICBM, making them less inviting for a disarming first strike against Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle (MIRV)-armed missiles.
However, they state that the expiry of New START in February 2026 may prompt US policymakers to arm LGM-35 or LGM-30 ICBMs with multiple warheads, making them tempting targets for adversaries and forcing a debate on whether silo basing remains viable.
In May 2025, the Trump Administration unveiled the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, which aims to shoot down ICBMs, missiles, and drones threatening the US mainland using satellite sensors, kinetic interceptors on sea, air, and land platforms, and directed-energy weapons, with AI linking all these components.
Such a system would enhance the survivability of the US silo-based ICBM force by increasing its chances of withstanding a first strike and preserving second-strike options.
However, a February 2025 report by the American Physical Society (APS) underscores that defending the US homeland from ICBM attack is fraught with daunting technical and financial challenges.
The report notes that boost-phase intercept is constrained by physics: missiles burn for only three to five minutes, requiring interceptors within 500 kilometers of launch sites, fired almost instantly, or a massive constellation of costly space-based systems—vulnerable to countermeasures like salvo launches.
It also states that midcourse defense is undermined by “threat clouds” of debris and decoys indistinguishable from real warheads in space, with sensors prone to nuclear blackout.
Furthermore, it says that terminal defense offers barely a minute to act, protecting only limited areas. It stresses that modest adversary countermeasures can overwhelm defenses, while arms-race dynamics magnify risks.
The report mentions that US missile defense programs costing over $400 billion since 1957 have yet to produce a proven, reliable homeland defense against ICBMs.
Given those challenges, the US may reconsider basing options for its land-based nuclear deterrent and supplemental second-strike options. Ryan Christenson argues in a May 2024 Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) article that the US should reconsider road-mobile ICBMs to hedge against a two-peer nuclear environment and technology breakthroughs that could erode the “guaranteed” survivability of US SSBNs.
While the air-based leg of the US nuclear triad offers flexibility, as bombers can be rerouted or recalled, with their visibility making forward basing or overflights near adversary airspace a strong statement of resolve, they may be vulnerable to enemy air defenses or depend on vulnerable bases, which risks them getting destroyed on the ground.
Likewise, evolving technologies like AI, new underwater sensors, commercial satellite imagery, and open-source intelligence (OSINT) may make oceans more transparent, increasing SSBN vulnerability.
While survivable, SSBNs are a “brittle” deterrent since losing communication, being prevented from launching, or destruction could eliminate their nuclear weapons and an entire leg of the triad if only one SSBN is at sea.
In view of all these vulnerabilities, Christensen argues that a US mobile ICBM leg could provide a supplemental second-strike capability, capable of dispersion and maneuver to complicate adversary targeting, reduce launch-on-warning pressures by offering flexible and survivable options, and minimize overflight concerns.
As the nuclear standoff intensifies, China’s mobile DF-61 and the US’s silo-based arsenal raise a crucial question: in the next great deterrent contest, will survival depend on mass or mobility?
